Vermilion County Emergency Management

Resource and Volunteer Management Volunteers

The most important step in this process are the men and women manning the JRSOI. These are volunteers specially trained to ensure that everyone is properly accounted for and no one or nothing falls through the cracks. All people and all equipment is carefully documented and accounted for from the time it arrives at the JRSOI till they out process and arrive safely home. This job doesn’t require feats of strength or agility. It only requires an attention to detail and a willingness to help out. Your primary responsibilities will be checking crews and volunteers into and out of the JRSOI, collecting personal data for emergency use, classification of volunteer capabilities, distributing access badges to authorized personnel, presenting mission and safety briefings, and coordination with disaster officials on where volunteers are needed. Just a couple of hours of classroom training and some practical exercise experience and you’re set to go! If this sounds like a job you would like to try your hand at, just fill out the contact information on this site and hit “Submit”. We look forward to hearing from you.

One of the biggest, and most important, jobs we have before, during and after a disaster is management of the resources and volunteers that come streaming into the disaster scene to help. Everything from firemen and paramedics to the Red Cross and Salvation Army will be descending on the scene to help the survivors of the disaster. These people need to be accounted for at all times!

We have developed a system through which all responders and volunteers check in and check out of a disaster scene. This system is called the Joint Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration (JRSOI) Center. In a word – Accountability. Every first responder, every mutual aid responder, every relief responder, every volunteer, every damage assessment team, and every piece of equipment going into the disaster zone will be checked through and accounted for prior to entering and after exiting the disaster zone. This way we ensure only those personnel NEEDED and AUTHORIZED inside the disaster zone are allowed in and no unauthorized personnel enter the zone. Likewise with civilian volunteers. There will be a great need for civilian volunteers, but at the right time and in the right place. By processing them through the JRSOI we ensure the right people are going to the right place to do the right job at the right time and that they have been authorized to do so.